**1. Introduction**

*1.1. Motivation and Literature Review*

Those who utilize land resources, as well as other stakeholders, are now looking for diversified regional development goals, demand of different phases, and land resource multi-suitability, scarcity, etc. All these pursuits together lead to different sorts of land use conflicts, severely restricting the multi-functional use of land [1,2]. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China's economy has rapidly developed. Especially since the beginning of the 21st century, pressure on resources and the environment caused by population growth and economic development has intensified, and the conflict between humans and land has become increasingly prominent. On the basis of high land expansion and resource consumption, the land-development model overemphasizes economic growth

**Citation:** Lin, G.; Fu, J.; Jiang, D. Production–Living–Ecological Conflict Identification Using a Multiscale Integration Model Based on Spatial Suitability Analysis and Sustainable Development Evaluation: A Case Study of Ningbo, China. *Land* **2021**, *10*, 383. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/land10040383

Academic Editor: Alexander Khoroshev

Received: 18 February 2021 Accepted: 3 April 2021 Published: 7 April 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

and ignores the overall layout of resources, which leads to great changes in the relationship between humans and land. With the drastic evolution of the land use spatial pattern, the frequency of land use conflict is increasing, and its form and content are more complex and changeable. How we control land use conflict to a manageable proportion has become an important task in the process of land use [3,4]. Land use conflict has a lot to do with the relationship between humans and land. It is a complicated issue involving multiple intertwining factors, such as nature, economy, and society. The only way to manage the conflict zone precisely is to quantitatively identify their functions, and the coupling coordination of land use functions is the point of easing land-use conflict and land resource management. However, because of the complexity and comprehensiveness of land use functions and the different emphasis on the characteristics of the study area (e.g., scale and regional characteristics), there was no unified land use function classification system to scientifically evaluate and diagnose conflict. Production–living–ecological space (PLES), the shortened form for production space (PS), living space (LS), and ecological space (ES), was reclassified considering both land use functions and utilization types [5]. It was formally put forward in the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, and its purpose was to optimize the spatial pattern of land uses by the overall coordination of PS, LS, and ES [6]. PLES basically covers the scope of spatial activities in people's material production and spiritual life. It is the basic carrier of human social development and economic activities. The three are mutually independent and inter-related; they have a symbiotic fusion and restriction effect [7]. Therefore, starting from exploring the differences in the functions of PLES in different regions, as well as the functional relationship between them, it is an effective method to mitigate land-use conflicts to achieve balanced and coordinated development of the region by probing the shortcomings of regional development and clarifying the characteristics of regional spatial patterns. The available research on the methods of quantitative recognition of spatial conflict mainly includes the comprehensive index model, which calculates the spatial conflict index based on the complexity, fragility, and dynamics of the land use system [8]; the competitiveness evaluation model, which ranks the conflicts of the construction, agriculture, and ecology space by the establishment of a competitiveness evaluation index system based on land suitability and driving force [9]; and the suitability evaluation model, which identifies spatial conflicts by evaluating the suitability of the specific land-use types [10]. This kind of method, combined with the geographic information system (GIS), introduced the multi-criteria spatial decision support system [11,12]. Zou et al. developed the conflict identification and intensity diagnosis by this model on the basis of the suitability evaluation [13]. In addition, many scholars have established the spatialconflict index to identify land conflicts from the perspective of PLES when the PLES concept was introduced [14,15]. However, so far, compared with the single-scale study based on administrative unit, the PLES conflicts between the microcosmic grid-scale receives less attention. Due to the scale dependence of geographical phenomena [16], the spatiotemporal pattern characteristics vary with the geographical scales; there is an urgent need to establish a multiscale integration model to scientifically diagnose land-use conflicts based on the PLES perspective.

### *1.2. Objective and Contribution*

This study aims to analyze the synergetic degree of PLES under different scales (administrative-unit, grid, and integrated multiscale) and to scientifically diagnose land use conflicts in Ningbo, China by synthesizing an evaluation model of sustainable development, a coupling coordination degree model, and a multiscale mathematical model. This is expected to enrich the methods of multiscale land use fusion conflict diagnosis and provide scientific reference for the optimized and sustainable development of regional territorial space.
